Pointless release - 35%

I looked for this album for a long time after reading and hearing all the hype around this band. Also judging from the high scores "Pulver" got here on Metal Archives, I thought I would be facing a masterpiece of originality.

Was I wrong...

This was supposed to be some great mix between black metal and pop music, and all I got to listen to was some uninteresting gothlike metal with weird vocals. And this is the main problem I have with Lifelover, all their ideas have already been done in a much better way by other bands. And this impression keeps building up throughout the entire album.

Although the guitars remain slightly noisy in a black metal way, and the vocals are weird and wacky, you don't get much more black metal aspects. The songs are limited in too simple structures. This is usually the trademark of pop music, but where a band like Joy Division (cited by the band as an influence) manage to create great songs, Lifelover simply can not avoid being boring by repeating the same idea over and over again.

So yes, there is some nice piano melody from time to time, even a couple of good pop guitar melodies, but sadly that’s mostly it. The drums are generic at best and don’t bring anything worth mentioning. Same thing about the samples, they could bring an extra dimension to the songs but instead they get quite annoying, like in M/S Salmonella when the sample literally cuts the song in half for no particular reason.

Anyway, Pulver is ok if you are looking for a gift for your (not too picky) metal loving girlfriend or if you just want some not complicated background music, but if you want a more mature black/pop band, I would suggest you look for some Joyless albums or even some real pop music.